Galatea

Chapter VI

They coached as to what I should say, about the tractors I was supposed to be parking, the bus I was due to take, and so on, then dropped me off at Clinton, I’d say at six thirty. I found a place to eat, fooled around, and then, around dark, strolled up the road, to see if the party was over and I could come bustling in. The house was all lit up, but not many people seemed to be left that I could see, so I came on up the drive, ready to reverse gears if anything developed. It did, right at my feet, on a small headwall over a pipe that drained a low place in the grass. It was Bill, still in his light gray suit, and sounding slightly drunk. He said: “Duke, hold it, stop. Is that you? Whyncha say something?”

“Yeah. Sure. Hello.”

“Siddown. ’M in a spot.”

“What you do, swing on someone?”

“Chrisalminey, cut the comedy.”

“Pal, what’s the trouble?”

“F’ got stuff ’m to get.”

“Stuff? What stuff?”

“F’ her. F’ Holly. ’S happened, Duke, ’t last. Ankles cracked up, but bad. All swell up, jus’ awful. ’S been coming, he knew ’t was coming, ’n he would give a goddam party. ’N doctor, he’s giv’n one too, so fat chance he would come. But he give orders. He said soak’m. Soak’m in some kind stuff f’m drugstore, ’n Marge sent me, get it. ’N f’got what ’t was. ’M parked on road, ’n f’got. Look, Duke, y’ go in, start talk’n t’ Marge, ’n find out—”

“Listen, pal, was it Epsom?”

“Chrisalminey, that’s it! Aw, pal!”

“Come on, Bill, we got to hurry.”

“Yeah, but firs’ mus’ thank you.”

“Come on now, and I’ll drive.”

His car was on 5, where he’d walked back from it, and while he was finding the key, three or four taxis passed, all lit up like Christmas trees, and turned into the drive. He said: “Homer blew, ’count of Booth. Took keys with ’m, so lot a people got to use cabs. Good thing. Damn Congressmen, tighter’n a tick.”

“Kid, we got to hurry. On ankles like that you can’t waste any time. The bigger they swell, the more she’s in agony.”

“Got keys. I’ my hand. Now.”

I took them, loaded him in, started, and headed for town. He said he was drunk, and to head him off from talking. I did, for maybe a mile. Then: “’E’s lower’n a worm, Duke. How could she marry ’at slug?”

“If she likes him, O.K.”

“Him? She likes what ’e’s got.”

“Watch it, fellow, you’re tight.”

What he seemed to be saying made me sick, and I wished he’d shut up. He said. “She likes ’is grub.”

“...She likes grub, period.”

“You got that much grub, Duke?”

“No, have you?”

“He has. Period.”

He quieted down, but then was off again: “Duke, if he wan’ Holly, like man wan’ woman, I might shoot th’ bassid, but respect’m, li’l bit. But whatch say, Duke, jerk don’ wan’ her on’y wan’ her blood.”

“You mean, he drinks it?”

“I mean, she’s a Hollis!”

“And Hollises, they’re hot stuff?”

“Y’ goddam right.”

“Aren’t you a Hollis?”

“Yop. ’M hot stuff too. Why, y’ poor Nevada rat, they come ’n Ark ’n Dove. ’A’s hot’s y’ c’n get.”

“The ark I heard of, and the animals, two by two. But the Dove is a new one on me.”

“Dove’s ship.”

“Same like the Ark?”

“Same’s Mayflower, on’y better. Lis’n, Duke, quit crack’n dumb, quit it I said quit it! ’M drunk, ’m splain’n good’s can. Hollises, they come. ’N Ark ’n Dove, to S’ Mary’s City. ’N t’ scum like him, to goddam bus boy, it’s same’s marry’n God. Same, on’y better. God, maybe, loves ’m, no ’count’n f’ taste. Hollis wou’n spit on ’m.”

He cussed some more, then apologized for doing it, because he said in Prince Georges they didn’t cuss good, like in Anne Arundel, where they do it in meter. But my heart was jumping, because of what he seemed to be saying, that whatever was back of the marriage, it didn’t include any love. Little by little, instead of shutting him up, I led him on to talk, and all of a sudden he burst out: “He nailed ’er feet to board. Like they do ’em geese.”

“What geese, Bill?”

“Stuff’n their livers up.”

“Oh, to make the patty?”

“O.K., y’ know how’s done. Duke, she wou’n look at ’m, ha’n been f’ grub. She went ’way, see? F’m S’ Mary’s, ’count S’Mary’s got no work. Went ’way, five years ’go, age eighteen, took job ’n Wash’n, Byu’ Grav’n Print’n, live on Branch Av’nue. Eat, Mr. Val place. Spen’ all ’er money, f’ grub. Grub she mus’ have, Duke, ’r she die. Got’s trouble. Fatnis, ’n glan’s. ’N ’en he got in it.”

“Yeah? What he do?”

“He’n care about her, not one hoot’n hell. Till, until, ’e hear name. Hollis. Hollis. Chrisalminey, to Valent’ scum, same’s God, on’y better. ’N ’en he nail ’er. Nail ’er feet. Give ’er grub, big thick steak — ’n give ’er free. ‘No check, so glad ’t las’ meet someone ’preciates my li’l steak.’ ’N first time ’n ’er life she got ’nough t’ eat — ’n free. Did she go wild, boy oh boy oh boy, wi’ rings on ’er fingers, bells on ’er toes, ’n rainbows play’n ukulele — y’ hear me, y’ damn Nevada stringbean? — ukulele I said, ’n bass drum. ’N ’en ’e says: ‘Miss Hollis, hozzit we get mar’d?’ She dis laugh, Duke, ha-ha. ’N she foun’ out. S’prise, s’prise, check f’ steak, seven dollars ’n eighty cents. He twis’ it, Duke, ’at chain ’e had on ’er f’oat. Round ’er neck ’e twis’ it. No free steak, no tater, no pie, no pudd’n — nuff’n. Free day, count’m, one, two, three — free. ’At does it. All over. Ole ball game. They get mar’d, have wedd’n. I done my bes’, Chrisalminey, me’n Marge bofe. He got idea, buil’ at d’ive. Know some guy, got chain on ’m, sell ’em fish, got orster shells, big pile out back, down Maine Av’nue. I say, Val, I do it. I buil’ d’ive, haula goddam shells, buil’ it. I took six mont’. ’E cou’n get in place, cou’n live in it, ’t all. Lot good ’t did. Y’ see. ’E’s got ’er. Jus’ chain-twis’n bassid.”

He passed out, and all the time in the drugstore I felt giddy, from buying stuff for her feet, using my own money, and knowing she didn’t want this man, but only the food he had. We started back, and pretty soon he asked where we were. I told him the District line, and he growled: “What I say t’ you? I been drunk again?”

“So much and so silly I don’t just recollect. In fact, I wasn’t really listening.”

“Tha’s it, Duke. Thanks.”

“You practically said nothing at all.”

“Pal, y’ all right.”

I parked on the loop out front, but had hardly cut lights when Marge came running out, so relieved to get the Epsom, and to see who was back of the wheel, she could hardly talk. I handed the keys to Bill, who sat there fumbling them, and the boxes to her, warning her to watch the water, that she didn’t use it too hot. I said it two or three times: “It’s Epsom that draws out the swelling, the liquid there in the joint. Not heat. Lukewarm does it.”

We were through the front door by then, she and I, and she hustled out to Mrs. Val’s bedroom. But in the living-room it was like some crazy dream, with Val walking around, snapping his fingers, and paying no attention to the Epsom; the waitresses working, gathering stuff up; and a thing on the love seat that was like a cartoon in the papers. He was, I would say, fifty, a small man in blue coat, blue shirt, gray pants, and two-toned party shoes, with white hair and a red, sun-burned face. He seemed to be in a rage, and no talk about ankles, the trick Homer had pulled, or anything would calm him down. He was grounded, apparently, for lack of the keys to his car, and meant to be driven home. Whatever Val would say, he’d keep coming back to it: “But, Mr. Vawl, I must awsk you to drive me. I will not take a cawb. I’m amized you awsk me to. I—”

“Mr. Commissioner, I will, when—”

“I’m ready, Mr. Vawl, to gow.”

“But the boy—”

“Has decawmped, as you towld me.”

“And my wife—”

“Has already heard my regrets, expressed to her in person, and has grawnted permission, Mr. Vawl, so if you down’t mind—”

Hammers went in my head, as they had when I hit Pabby Ramos, and I prayed to be saved from wrong-time adrenalin. But about that time in came Bill, weaving, belching, and mumbling. Mr. Commissioner looked at him and went on: “Mr. Vawl, it’s a simple mawttah of prowtocowl, and I shall sit hyaw—”

It was the first I’d heard of protocol, and how it was different from Hadacol I didn’t at that time know. But while he was talking, Bill was lurching, past the love seat, past the table, past the sofa, around to the brass basket full of wood left over from spring. He picked up a chunk and said: “Watch ’t, Val — duck! I’ll teach the son a bitch protocol!”

Now, in the ring, you hit, duck, or block, and on that stuff you do or you don’t. My hand was there, and maybe the adrenalin helped, I don’t say it didn’t. But catching the chunk was just the beginning, because all hell broke loose, with the girls screaming, Val yelling at Bill, Mr. Commissioner yelling at Val, and me yelling at everyone: “Break it up!” — whatever that meant. I went over the sofa at Bill, tied him up, and dropped the chunk in the basket. But he kept right on with his talk, right over my shoulder. He said to Mr. Commissioner: “Pro’col, y’ goddam squirt, pro’col here is me! Stan’ up when I speak t’ y’. What you c’-missioner of? Hey, ’m ask’n y’. Y’ dayum li’l end o’ nuff’n! Y’—”

“Bill!”

The voice in the door wasn’t loud, but, brother, did it carry! Marge jerked her thumb at the girls and told them dress. Soon as they were out she went over to Bill, unwound my arms from around him, and looked at him. He took her hand, slapped his own cheek with it, and started to cry. I wanted to cry. She didn’t wait to see if I did or not, but marched herself to Mr. Commissioner, and said: “John Dayton, you order your cab and go!”

“Why — Mowge Dennis!”

“Stop talking that way!”

“When did you get here, Marge?”

“I been here. All the time. I’m Holly’s sister-in-law. Why, the very idea of you, with all the trouble we got, carrying on like this!”

“This... this is a hell of a note.”

His accent seemed to be gone, and so did the protocol, and I grabbed Bill by the arm, drug him out to the cottage, and parked him on the bed. When I opened the closet door to put his coat on a hanger, there was Homer’s maroon with all keys right in the pocket. Mr. Commissioner picked his out and at last shoved off for town, and the cab he had ordered would do to haul the girls. Val grabbed the phone, snatched a list out of his pocket, and began calling people to say their cars would be sent, this very night at once, as “the tangle is straightened out — and you’ll have it right at your door, if you’ll say where the keys should be put.” I realized I would spend the night delivering cars to town, shuttling back by cab, delivering some more, and shuttling some more.

I sat down on the love seat, to get adjusted to that, and think over all I had heard, as well as what I had seen — like the way things were done, in this peculiar state, with Val not able to stand up to some jerk of a government official, and Marge able to shrivel him up in two words. But then I began to feel bitter, not at the night’s work ahead, but at the way Val took it, putting this bunch of wheels ahead of this thing that had happened, and who it had happened to. I knew those ankles were serious, as Bill seemed to know, drunk as he was. Why didn’t Val know it too? At first it had seemed wonderful he didn’t love her. Now it made me sore, and I felt the hammers again. How long they beat, I don’t exactly know, but then Marge was there in the door, beckoning me to the bedroom.

Only one lamp was lit, and she was lying there, still in the orange dress, her feet in a little tub. Her eyes were closed, but she lifted a hand when she heard me. When I sat on the bench beside her, I saw beads on her brow that said she was still in pain. I took my handkerchief and blotted them, and she nodded her head just a little, in a way that brought us both back to that day out by the tree. I said: “Keep your feet dunked under and you’ll be getting relief. Don’t let Marge make it too hot. Just puts more strain on your heart, swells up the fluid inside. I’d take an Anacin, and a sleeping pill if you have one.”

“I wanted to thank you. For getting the Epsom.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

I went stumbling out, and all through that crazy night, driving cars up, putting keys in wacky places, coming back and starting all over, I hardly minded at all, because she had wanted to thank me.